Creamers and thickeners are important constituents for dry soups, particularly cream-style soups, gravies and sauces and often account for the bulk of the solid ingredients. In cream-style soups the creamers are included at relatively high levels to improve the appearance, texture and to impart a creamy mouthfeel. The creamers used up to now are spray-dried emulsified fat powders, like coffee whiteners, which were developed for incorporation in hot coffee. The requirements set to a coffee whitener are therefore different from those set to a whitener or creamer to be used in soups. The coffee whiteners or creamers are usually manufactured by spray-drying a concentrated emulsion comprising fat, protein, emulsifier, carrier material (usually maltodextrin) and water.
Thickeners are usually native starches, but sometimes also modified starches may be used. The starch material is a difficult material to disperse. The dispersion may be facilitated by fat coating the starch, by agglomerating and fat coating or by mixing with a dispersing aid, like sugar.
It has now been found possible to combine the creamer or whitener and the starch thickener in one product, which can be formulated and manufactured in a way so as to provide a creamer-thickener, which not only performs both functions, i.e. to whiten or cream or to thicken, but which is especially adapted to the environment in which it will be used, e.g. in soups, sauces or gravies, calf milk replacers, puddings or custards or geriatric diets. The creamer-thickener can also be incorporated with advantage into other products, such as cake, pancake and scone mixes, and in low-calorie foods.
The use of such a whitener-thickener or creamer-thickener in e.g. soups and sauces entails several advantages. First of all the combination of a creamer and thickener in one product requires only one drying and agglomeration step in its manufacture instead of two drying and agglomeration steps in the separate manufacture of a creamer/whitener and a thickener, thus leading to savings in production cost. The combination of creamer and thickener in one product further appeared to give optimal creaminess, improved dispersability and better consumer appeal. A third advantage is that on the one hand sometimes certain constituents could be deleted, while in general the amount of other ingredients could be considerably reduced, which again leads to important economic advantages. Also in a mixture of ingredients there is often the risk of segregation of components, which risk does not exist with the creamer-thickener according to the invention.
Finally, in the manufacture of other foodstuffs or animal feeds in which the creamer-thickener is used, there is the advantage of easier handling in the factory, since only one ingredient has to be added instead of two ingredients. An additional advantage is that the creamer-thickener does not exhibit dusting when being handled.